Welcome to the Journal of Now and Forever. This Journal is a collection of my Star Control and Star Control 2 fiction. Note: Some of this material is, by necessity, extrapolation from the slim information provided by canon sources.

New fiction is posted first at My Livejournal before it appears here. This story is in response to 15 Minute Ficlets' Challenge #54.

Dean yawned and powered up his monitor. It was one of those nights when he couldn't sleep because of the noise, so he might as well see if there was anything interesting on Evanet. Nothing like tacking the first couple letters of the world's names onto things to make them different, he mused. He looked around for something to drink and found a half-empty tumbler of something in the light the monitor provided.

At least Evanet powered up fast. He poked around the forums and news; Evanet was surprisingly low-traffic in some respects, perhaps because sooner or later everyone knew who was who, so anonymity was hard to come by. Dean himself hardly ever posted anything beyond a "me too," but you never knew what you'd find if you just lurked.

He took a slug from the tumbler; coffee. Must've been Nick's from the night before. Nick was kinda weird that way, drinking coffee from a glass instead of a mug. Not that it stopped Dean from drinking it now.

Ah, there it was: the news he was looking to find. He'd been waiting for this: an update on the housing situation. They'd all had to double up with roommates following the landing on Eta Vulpeculae 2, since there were other, more pressing concerns than bigger living spaces on everyone's minds. But the construction of new housing was coming along fine, so –

Except it wasn't, anymore. Halfway through the building, there was concern about the stability of the underlying ground, so the whole thing was halted and would stay that way until said concern was addressed.

"Aw, man," Dean mumbled. He took another drink of cold coffee before wondering if maybe the middle of the night wasn't the best time for caffeine.

The work stoppage meant he'd be stuck here for a while with Nick. Good thing he got along okay with the KORB-series Androsynth, but man, Nick was grumpy a lot of the time. Maybe he'd mellow with age, or something. Except Dean wasn't sure he wanted to be around Nick long enough for them both to age.

Ah well, could be worse. He shrugged in the phosphor twilight and closed the news article. At least he had a place over his head, and Nick could cook, and Dean supposed it wasn't too bad overall. And sooner or later they'd either finish the current building or start a new one. Since Androsynth didn't age, at least not much, it just meant patience.

Besides, Nick had stopped calling out in his sleep by now, and he didn't do it that often, so it wasn't like there was any emergency or anything.

Comments? Email me: laridian at aol dot com